Where The Living Things Are
A few years after moving to Oregon, I wrote this poem:
Here, camellias bloom in February
and grass turns green in October.
Moss crawls across concrete
and you are not dead yet either.
Here, the air smells like soaked earth
and second chances.
Inhale and begin again.
Here, the tide rolls in and out and it must.
You can, you can, you can.
Here, get lost on winding mountain roads
lined with impossibly tall trees
and even taller dreams.
Here, there is awe.
Reverence.
For this place,
and what it took to get here.
Years before writing this poem, and during my last few months in Colorado, I felt half alive. Empty. Dried out. Suffocating. It was like I was relentlessly crawling towards any sign of life, water, shades of green in a bone-dry, parched landscape. I could not escape the visceral exhaustion.
A version of me was dying the prerequisite kind of death that must happen before something new can be born. Somehow, I had to resurrect my barely-beating heart and learn to be alive again.
So, I went to where the living things are.
I went northwest.
On my first full day in Portland, I hiked the witch’s castle trail in Forest Park. It was mid June and everything was green. There was green moss coating the fence posts, green ferns lining the creek bed, and dozens of different kinds of trees all with green leaves. Vines full of wild salmonberries, raspberries, and blackberries hung on either side of the trail. The air was damp, but it wasn’t raining. Since Portland sits just above sea level, the air felt easier too, more accessible.
There were tiny mushrooms wedged in between rocks, spiders spinning webs just above the reach of humans, and birds singing in the trees. About halfway to the witch’s castle, I saw a beautiful barred owl perched up on a branch stretching across the width of the trail. Before this moment, I had never seen an owl in the wild, and, in the years since, I’ve only seen owls two or three other times. I believed seeing this owl in the middle of the day, on a crowded urban trail, and within the first 24 hours of being in my new home was a sign I was in the right place.
I made it to the witch’s castle and loved getting to explore the old structure. It felt like a rite of passage. As I walked back to my car, I remember thinking about the sheer magnitude of possibility in this one lifetime. I had no idea what was to come, but a small, slowly-growing part of me believed in my future and that was enough.
Looking back, nearly 8 years later, what I experienced that day was exactly what I needed and would continue to need for the next few years. I needed to be where the livings are. I needed to be able to look in any direction and find something thriving. I needed to be in a place where water continually washes away the dirt before it accumulates. I needed to be where plants grow in even the strangest of places like fence posts and the concrete walls of old ruins in the forest. I needed to be where I could see green year round. I needed to be where the air was plentiful and nourishing. I needed to be in a place that was as alive as I believed I could be.
While healing, I siphoned life from my surroundings. I lived by association over and over and over. In all seasons, I stood in dense forests, along coastlines, at the bases of waterfalls and reminded myself “you are not dead yet either”. If flowers could bloom in the depth of winter, and grass could spring back to life after a dry summer, and moss could grow on lifeless rocks, then I, too, could find a way.
And I did. Slowly.
All of this to say: If some wise part of your soul is nudging you towards change, please listen. If you know you are meant for more than you are currently accepting, you are. If there is something you believe you need to do, you are probably right.
Above all else- you are worth saving, even if that means you must save yourself.
All my love,
Rachel
